R  K  A  S  O  N  > 


FOR 


REFUSING  TO  CONSECRATE  A  CHURCH 

HAVING  AN  ALTAR 

INSTEAD    OF 

A  COMMUNION  TABLE, 

TM1-:  DOCTRINE  OF  SCRIPTURE  AND  OK  THE  PRO 
'AL  CHURCH   AS  TO 


3,  Sacrifice  in  tljc  Corb's  Gnppcr, 


AND    A 


PRIESTHOOD  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY. 


BY 


Charles  Fcttit  Mcllvaiuo.  fl.D,, 

hoy  of  tl)cPioccoc  of  UMjio. 


MT.  VERNON,  OHIO  : 

COCHRAN  &  CLARK. 
1840. 


REASONS 

FOR 

REFUSING  TO  CONSECRATE  A  CHURCH 

HAVING  AN  ALTAR 


IXSTEAD    OF 

A  COMMUNION  TABLE, 

<OR  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SCRIPTURE  AND  OF  THE  PROTESTANT 
EPISCOPAL  CHURCH  AS  TO 

^  Sacrifice  iu  tljc  Core's  Supper, 

AND    A 

PRIESTHOOD  IN  THE  CHRISTIAN  MINISTRY. 


BY 


Charles  Pettit  Mdlvainc,  D.D., 

vv. 

Sis  I)  op  of  tljc  Dioccec  of  (£>l)io. 


MT.  VERNON,  OHIO 

COCHRAN  &  CLARK. 

1816, 


\ 


INTRODUCTION. 


THE  abruptness  of  the  commencement  of  the  following  pages, 
needs  some  explanation.  At  the  late  Convention  of  the  Diocese  of 
Ohio,  the  author  delivered  his  annual  Address,  of  which  these  pages 
(somewhat  enlarged  since)  were  a  part.  The  Convention  directed 
that  they  should  be  published,  not  only  in  the  ordinary  way  with  the 
rest  of  the  Address,  in  the  Journal,  but  also  in  some  five  hundred 
copies,  in  a  separate  pamphlet.  Hence  their  present  appearance. 


REASONS  FOR  REFUSING  TO  CONSECRATE,  <kc. 

I  have  now  to  request  the  particular  attention  of  my  brethren  to  a 
subject  which,  in  my  view,  is  one  of  interest  and  importance. 

In  times  past,  when  nothing  seemed  less  probable  than  that  Ro- 
mish corruption  of  Christianity  should  make  head  in  the  Protestant 
Churches  of  England  and  of  this  country ;  when  a  man  would  have 
been  thought  almost  mad  who  should  have  predicted  that  by  this  time 
and  as  the  work  of  about  ten  years,  such  changes  as  we  are  witness- 
es of,  as  well  in  attachment  to  the  great  principles  of  the  Protestant 
Reformation,  as  in  detestation  of  the  anti-christian  doctrines  of  Pope- 
ry, would  take  place  at  home  and  abroad  ;  when  for  one  minister  of 
a  Protestant  Church  to  become  a  Romanist  was  singular  enough  to 
excite  universal  astonishment,  and  when  the  fact  that  nearly  one  hun- 
dred clergymen  of  our  mother  church  in  Great  Britain,  and  several 
from  our  own  Church,  have  apostatized  to  the  faith  of  Rome  within 
some  five  or  six  years,  had  it  been  predicted,  would  have  been  utterly 
ridiculed  as  too  impossible  to  be  even  dreamed  of;  it  is  not  singu- 
lar that  some  things  then  should  have  been  looked  upon  as  matters  of 
indifference  which  such  alarming  changes  have  now  compelled  us  to 
regard  as  of  serious  importance  in  connection  with  the  growth  of  her- 
«sy  and  corruption. 


[*] 

Of  that  class,  is  the  form  of  the  structure  on  which  we  celebrate 
the  Supper  of  the  Lord.  We  have  not  been  accustomed  hitherto  to 
take  that  matter  much  into  account  except  as  a  question  of  taste.  It 
has  always  indeed  been  decidedly  the  usage  of  our  Church  to  have  a 
literal  table  as  distinguished  from  an  altar-form  structure.  Until  a 
very  few  years,  the  contrary  was  seldom  seen.  It  is  still  an  excep- 
tion to  the  general  custom.  But  as  long  as  it  seemed  to  be  a  matter 
of  architectural  preference,  rather  than  of  doctrinal  principle  ;  as  long 
as  there  appeared  among  those  who  called  themselves  members  of  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  no  effort  to  "  unprotestantise"  the 
Church,  to  cast  dishonor  upon  the  principles  of  the  Reformation,  to 
bring  back  the  outcast  corruptions  of  Rome,  especially  that  doctrine 
concerning  a  real  and  propitiatory  sacrifice  in  the  Eucharist,  and  a 
real,  sacrificing,  mediatorial  priesthood  in  h;m  who  is  commissioned 
to  minister  the  Eucharist,  as  if  he  stood  between  God  and  man  at  the 
altar  of  atonement,  and  as  if  your  peace  with  God  depended  on  his 
priestly  intercession  there ;  under  such  circumstances  there  was  no 
sense  of  hazard  in  leaving  people  to  follow  their  fancies  in  the  par- 
ticular article  of  church  furniture  referred  to  ;  although  then,  just  as 
much  as  now,  to  have  any  thing  but  a  literal  table,  in  the  usual  sense, 
for  the  communion  of  Christ's  household  of  faith,  was  at  variance 
with  the  direction  of  the  Prayer  Book,  the  precedents  of  the  Scrip- 
ture and  the  practice  of  the  early  church. 

But  wonderfully  have  matters  changed  within  a  very  few  years. 
What  sort  of  language  and  of  sympathy  in  regard  to  the  Reformation, 
and  the  peculiar  doctrines  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  especially  those 
most  connected  with  our  present  subject,  have  we  become  so  accus- 
tomed to  of  late,  among  professed  Protestant  Episcopalians,  that  we 
almost  cease  to  notice  them,  but  which  a  few  years  ago  would  have 
seemed  impossible  to  any  but  a  real  Romanist !  It  is  now  too  late  for 
any  man  of  ordinary  observation  to  question  that  there  is  in  the  bo- 
som of  the  Church  of  England  and  of  our  own,  which  shares  so  ne- 
cessarily in  all  the  influences  that  affect  the  doctrinal  condition  of  the 
former,  a  decided  and  concerted  effort  to  propagate  among  the  clergy 
and  laity  those  very  essential  and  central  doctrines  of  Romish  divin- 
ity against  which  our  church  declares  her  strong  protest  on  every 
fold  of  her  banner.  That  effort  is  too  systematic,  too  bold,  too  dili- 
gent, too  artful,  and  already  is  too  successful  not  to  be  alarming  to  any 
mind  not  already  so  far  drugged  with  its  poisons  as  to  be  incapable 
of  natural  sight,  or  else  so  indifferent,  or  so  inordinately  anxious  for 
peace,  at  almost  all  hazards,  as  to  be  unwilling  to  believe  there  is  an 
enemy  at  the  gate  until  his  standard  is  planted  on  the  citadel. 

No  object  is  more  essential  to  the  unprotestantising  of  our  church 
and  to  the  taking  away  of  the  great  gulf  that  lies  between  the  gospel 
as  she  teaches  it  and  its  awful  perversion  and  denial  in  the  Church  of 
Rome,  than  that  of  getting  away  the  doctrine  of  our  articles  and  hom- 
ilies concerning  the  nature  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  substituting  that 
of  the  decrees  of  the  Council  of  Trent.  Our  Church,  in  the  "  Homily 
concerning  the  Sacrament,"  having  in  her  eye  the  very  corruptions 
now  sought  to  be  propagated  among  us,  exhorts  you  to  "  take  heed  le»t 


of  the  memory  (\.  e.  ol' the  doctrine  of  a  remembrance  of  the  death  of 
Christ  in  the  Eucharist.)  he  made  a  sacrifice  ;  lest  applying  it  for  the 
dead  ice  lose  the  fruit  that  be  alive."  And  she  assures  yon  that  in  the 
Lord's  Supper,  "  you  need  no  other  sacrifice  or  oblation,''''  (than  that 
of  Christ  on  the  Cross,)  "  no  sacrificing  Priest,  no  mass,  no  means 
established  by  man's  invention."*  But  the  revolutionary  effort, 
which  is  best  known  as  the  Tractarian,  directly  contradicts  ihis  lan- 
guage of  our  Church,  teaching  that  we  do  need  another  oblation  and 
sacrifice  ;  that  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  on  the  cross  cannot  avail  us, 
unless  it  be  applied  by  what  is  called  the  "  unbloody"  sacrifice  of  his 
body  and  blood  upon  the  altar  of  the  Eucharist;  that  we  must  have 
the  mediation  of  a  "sacrificing  Priest"  at  that  altar,  or  we  cannot 
partake  in  the  mediation  of  our  Great  High  Priest  before  the  mercy- 
eeat  in  the  sanctuary  in  the  heavens  ;  and  consequently,  that  the 
Lord's  Supper  is  not  a  mere  "memory"  of  a  sacrifice,  but  is  a  real  pro- 
pitiatory sacrifice  for  sin.  This  is  Popery  in  the  essence.  This  is 
one  of  the  devices  by  which,  under  a  mask  of  Gospel  phrase,  the 
Church  of  Rome  evacuates  the  gospel  of  all  that  makes  it  a  gospel. 
This  is  the  hand  by  which  it  forges  the  chains  of  superstition  and 
priestcraft,  and  riveting  them  around  the  reason  and  the  consciences 
of  men,  fastens  them  down  under  bondage  to  whatever  terrors  a  des- 
potic priesthood  may  employ. 

Now  where  this  doctrine,  concerning  a  real  sacrifice  and  priesthood 
in  the  Eucharist,  exists,  it  musi  have  a  literal  altar  in  the  communion  ; 
because  that  proclaims  and  is  part  of,  the  very  idea  of  the  Sacrament 
which  it  maintains.  And  it  must  get  rid  of  a  literal  table,  because 
that  declares  the  very  truth  concerning  the  Sacrament,  as  simply  a 
Commemorative  feast  upon  a  sacrifice,  once  offered  on  the  cross,  which 
is  most  absolutely  denied. 

This  view  is  so  well  expressed  by  Gregory  Martin,  a  learned  Ro- 
mish divine  of  the  sixteenth  century  and  one  of  the  principal  hands 
in  the  Rhemish  translation  of  the  N.  Test.,  that  I  am  content  with 
his  words.  "  The  name  of  altar,  both  in  the  Hebrew  and  Greek, 
and  by  the  consent  of  all  peoples,  both  Jews  and  Pagans  implying 
and  importing  sacrifice,  therefore  we  in  respect  of  the  sacrifice  of 
Christ's  body  and  blood,  say  altar  rather  than  table.  But  the  Pro- 
testants because  they  make  it  only  a  communion  of  bread  and  wine, 
or  a  supper  and  no  sacrifice,  therefore  they  call  it  a  table  only."  Un- 
derstand their  wily  policy  therein  is  this  :  to  take  away  the  holy  sac- 
rifice of  the  mass,  they  take  away  both  altar  and  priest ;  because  they 
know  right  well  that  these  three,  priest,  sacrifice  and  altar,  are  depen- 
dents and  consequents  one  of  another,  so  that  they  cannot  be  separa- 
ted. If  there  be  an  external  sacrifice,  there  must  be  an  external  priest- 
hood to  offer  it,  and  an  altar  to  offer  the  same  upon.  So  had  the  Gen- 
tiles their  sacrifices,  priests  and  altars ;  so  had  the  Jews ;  so  Christ 
himself,  being  a  priest,  according  to  the  order  of  Melchizedec,  had  a 
sacrifice,  his  body :  and  an  altar,  his  cross,  upon  the  which  he  offer- 
ed it.  And  because  he  instituted^  ^is  sacrifice  to  continue  in  his 


•Homily  concerning  the  sacrament,  Part  1. 


••liurrh  forever  in  coinmeir.oration  and  representation  of  his  death, 
llK-relon-  did  he  wilhal  ordain  liis  apostles  pr'n-st*  at  hi*  lust  supper, 
and  there  and  then  intituled  the  holy  order  of  priesthood  and  pm-M-, 
(saying  /""'  /'idle,  do  this,)  to  offer  the  wlf-mutte  sacrificr  in  a  mysti- 
cal and  unbloody  manner,  until  the  world's  end/'t 

To  the  accuracy  of  the  above  as  to  Protestants  making  the  Kucha- 
risl  only  a  communion  of  bread  and  wine,  I  do  not  agree.  But  as  to 
the  essentially  Romish  connexion  of  altar,  it  is  all  most  true.  And 
hence  you  see  that  whether  the  Lord's  Supper  be  celebrated  on  a  ta- 
ble, or  on  an  altar  •  on  a  structure  the  form  of  which  shall  express  a 
mere  feast  of  communion,  or  on  one  whicli  is  ever  associated  with 
the  idea  of  a  proper  priest  and  sacrifice,  cannot  with  Romanists,  or 
those  who  sympathise  with  their  doctrine  of  the  Eucharist,  be  a.  mat- 
ter of  indifference. 

We  have  therefore  seen  that  in  proportion  as  the  Tractarian  type 
of  Romish  doctrine  and  sympathy  has  gained  favor  in  England  or  in 
this  country,  there  has  grown  up  a  marked  fondness  for  altars,  instead 
of  tables.  In  some  instances  where  this  substitution  is  made,  I  doubt 
not  it  is  as  it  used  to  be,  a  mere  matter  of  taste,  unassociated  with 
any  doctrinal  bearing.  But  I  fear  such  is  not  generally  the  case. 
There  is  undoubtedly  in  many  a  decided  charm  in  the  form  of  an  al- 
tar, because  of  its  connexion  with  certain  forms  of  doctrine  ;  and  for 
this  it  takes  the  place  of  the  simple  communion-table.  Thus  testifies  a 
learned  and  most  able  champion  of  the  truth  in  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land concerning  the  state  of  things  there.  "  Of  all  the  acts  of  these 
anti-protestant  agitators,  (writes  the  Rev.  W.  Goode,  author  of  the 
41  Divine  Rule  of  Faith  and  Practice,")  none  perhaps  more  demands 
our  attention,  at  the  present  moment,  than  the  attempt  to  substitute  al- 
tars for  communion-tables  in  our  churches.  They  are  now  notori- 
ously set  up  for  the  furtherance  of  Tractarian  views  of  the  nature  of 
the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper.  The  communion-table  is  thrust 
out  of  the  old  churches  to  make  way  for  them.  They  are  studious- 
ly introduced  wherever  practicable,  into  our  churches.  And  thus  the 
purity  of  our  Church's  doctrine  on  the  subject  is  placed  in  jeopardy/'* 

Now,  my  brethren,  I  have  not  looked  without  serious  considera- 
tion upon  these  things.  For  several  years,  I  have  not  consecrated  a 
church,  so  far  as  I  can  remember,  in  which  there  was  an  altar-form 
structure,  instead  of  a  proper  table.  But  this  was  rather  because 
such  a  structure  did  not  happen  to  be  in  the  new  churches,  than  be- 
cause I  was  prepared  to  make  any  serious  objection  to  it.  But  the 
altered  condition  of  things  to  which  I  have  referred,  has  placed  the 
subject  in  a  very  different  light,  so  that  I  have  been  led  to  enquire  in- 
to my  duty  with  regard  to  it  as  I  had  not  done  before.  The  conclu- 
sion to  which  I  have  come  is  this, — that  hereafter  I  must  refuse  to 
consecrate  any  church  in  which  there  is  an  altar-form  structure  for 
the  Lord's  Supper,  and  in  which  there  is  not  a  proper  table,  in  the 

tFulke's  "  Defence  of  the  English  Translations  of  the  Bible  against  the  cav- 
ils of  Gregory  Martin,"  Park.  Sec.  Ed.,  pp.  515, 516,  240  and  241. 

•Altars  prohibited  by  the  Ch.  of  England,  by  Rev.  W.  Goode  M.  A.,  F.  A. 
S.  Lond. 


usual  sense,  as  the  permanent  furniture.  I  must  require,  irol  only 
that  there  be  not  an  altar,  but  that  then:  be  a  permanent  and  proper 
table.  Of  this  determination  I  take  the  present  opportunity  of  giv- 
ing notice  to  the  diocese. 

In  taking  a  position  which  I  cannot  but  suppose  will  seemr  not  on- 
ly new,  but  over-scrupulous  to  those  whose  attention  has  not  been 
much  drawn  in  that  direction,  it  is  due,  as  well  to  you,  as  myself, 
that  I  should  assign  my  reasons.  This,  I  now  proceed  to  do.  And, 
my  brethren,  if  I  should  go  more  largely  into  \he  subject  than  the  jus- 
tification of  the  determination  just  declared  would  seem  to  require,  I 
am  sure  you  will  rot  think  the  time  inappropriately  employed  when 
you  shall  see  how  conclusively  the  state  of  the  case  as  to  what  is 
right  in  our  Church,  in  regard  to  the  furniture  for  the  Lord's  Supper, 
expounds  her  doctrine  of  the  nature  of  that  sacrament,  as  involving 
no  sacrifice,  except  as  all  prayer  is  sacrifice,  and  of  the  minister  there- 
of as  being  no  Priest  except  as  that  name  is  used  synonomously  with 
Presbyter  or  Elder,  t 

But  here  I  wish  it  to  be  distinctly  understood  that  in  what  I  have 
now  said  or  shall  say,  there  is  no  reference  intended  to  any  minister,  or 
parish,  or  any  state  of  things  in  this  diocese.  In  carrying  out  my 
views  of  duty  in  this  matter  recently,  I  have  designed  not  the  least 
censure  on  any  person  or  parish.  Nothing  of  that  sort  is  intended  in 

tThe  English  Translations  of  the  Bible  were  violently  attacked  by  Romish 
writers,  in  the  age  of  the  Reformation,  because  the  original  word  Presbuteros, 
(whence  comes  our  word  Presbyter,)  was  in  no  instance  rendered  Priest.  The 
Reformers  answered  thus:  "The  word  priest,  by  popish  abuse  ia  commonly 
spokaa  for  n  Karrijlc.fr  the  same  as  sacerdos  in  Latin.  But  the  Holy  Ghost  nev- 
er calleth  the  ministers  of  the  word  and  sacraments  of  the  N.  Test,  hiereis  or 
tarrrdntfx.  Therefore  the  translators  to  make  r\  difference  between  the  minis- 
ters of  the  O.  Test,  and  those  of  the  Xew,  call  the  one  according  to  the  usual 
acceptation,  priests,  and  the  other  according  to  the  original  derivation,  prcsby- 
tertt  or  elders.  The  name  of  priest  according  to  the  original  derivation  from 
presbyter,  we  do  not  refuse;  but  according  to  the  common  acception  for  a 
sacrificer  we  cannot  take  it,  when  it  is  spoken  of  the  ministry  of  the  N.  Test. 
Hut  seeing  your  popish  sacrificing  power,  and  blasphemous  sacrifice  of  your 
mass  hath  no  manner  of  ground  in  the  holy  scriptures,  either  in  the  original 
Greek,  or  in  your  own  Lr.tin  translation,  you  are  driven  to  seek  a  *illy  shadow 
of  it  in  the  abusive  aceeption  and  sounding  of  the  English  word  priest  and 
priesthood.  And  therefore  you  do  in  great  earnest  affirm  that  priest,  sacrifice, 
and  altar  arc  dependents  and  consequents  one  of  another,  so  that  they  cannot 
be  separated.  If  you  should  say  in  Latin  sacerdos,  sacrificium,  altare  be  such 
consequents,  we  will  subscribe  to  you  ;  but  if  you  will  change  the  word,  and 
so}'  presbyter,  sacrijiein.ni,  altnrr,  every  learned  man's  ears  will  glow  to  hear  you 
say  they  arc  dependents  and  consequents  inseparable.  Therefore  we  must 
needs  distinguish  of  the  word  'priest''  in  your  corollary  ;  for  if  you  mean  there- 
by mcerdotem,  we  grant  the  consequence  of  sacrifice  and  nltar;  but  if  you 
mean  prexhytinim,  wo  deny  that  (Jod  ever  joined  these  three  in  an  inseparable 
band  ;  or  that  presbyter,  in  that  he  in  presbyter,  hath  any  thing  to  do  with  sac- 
rifice or  altar,  morn  thnn  smiiir,  or  anrirnt  welder.'" — FuUce's  Def.  of  English 
Translation  of  the  Bible,  Park.  Sec.  Kd.,  pp.  1(19,  2,1.1. 

"  Ambiguity,  (says  Bp.  White,)  has  arisen  from  the  circumstance  that  the 
English  language  applies  the  same  word  '  Priest,'  to  denote  two  words  in  thr 
original,  (Hicrnts  and  Prrsbnl»-r<>*.)  Of  the  latter  word  it  is  hero  affirmed  that 
it  ncvrr  denMrs  an  oftVrcr  of  sacrifice;  and  as  In  the  former  word,  none  nl- 
Irgrs  that  it  ever  stand."  for  a  i-lirisli.in  minister  in  the  scriptures." — Dist.  ott 
Ilir  I-]\i  chit  rial. 


t»J 

\vhai  1  li.ivr  \<  t  to  say.  In  the  few  rases  of  altar-form  structures  in 
«-liiirrlics  of  Ohio,  I  have  no  reason  to  bclirvc  tlicre  has  been  any  ob- 
](•<•(  beyond  the  gratification  of  a  builder's  uiste.  It  may  therefore 
.-rein  to  some  ill-timed  to  adopt  the  determination  of  which  I  havr 
just  notified  you.  Hut  my  opinion  is  precisely  the  reverse.  It  seems 
to  me  far  wiser  to  settle  a  definite  rule  of  this  kind,  while  there  is 
nothing  against  it  more  difficult  to  be  yielded  than  a  mere  matter  of 
architectural  fancy  ;  than  to  wait  till  erroneous  doctrine  shall  have 
g-uned  so  much  strength  as  to  change  a  question  of  taste  into  one  of 
principle,  and  make  the  having  of  an  •,«.ltar  identical  with  the  keeping 
of  a  good  conscience. 

Let  me  first  go  to  history.     What  was  the  primitive  use? 

None  can  deny  that  our  Lord  instituted  and  administered  the  Eu- 
charist at  a  common  household  table.  And  when  he  says  "  the  hand 
of  him  that  betrayeth  me  is  with  me  on  the  table,"  we  necessarily 
contemplate  the  Saviour  and  the  twelve  as  engaged  in  an  act  of  com- 
munion simply  ;  analagous  to  that  of  a  household  around  its  family 
table.  Nothing  can  more  perfectly  exclude  the  idea  of  sacrifice, 
priest  and  altar.  It  was  at  the  commemoration  of  the  Passover.  The 
Supper  of  the  Lord  took  the  place  of  the  paschal  feast.  The  latter 
was  a  feast  after,  and  upon,  a  sacrifice,  which  had  been  previously 
offered  at  the  great  altar  of  '  burnt-offerings  at  the  Temple.'  The 
work  of  the  Jewish  priest  was  finished  when  the  paschal  lamb  had 
been  sacrificed.  Other  altar  a  Jew  could  not  have,  than  that  in  the 
temple  around  which  the  blood  of  the  lamb  was  sprinkled.  Other 
sacrifice  there  remained  none  in  connection  with  that  feast,  when  once 
that  lamb  had  been  slain.  But  there  did  remain  the  feast  of  commun- 
ion upon  that  lamb,  thus  offered  once  for  all  the  house  of  Israel. 
The  lambs  were  many  ;  the  sacrifice,  the  feast,  the  type  was  one.  It 
*.vas  the  communion  of  the  whole  household  of  the  chosen  people. 
They  met  in  families  as  we  meet  for  our  communion  in  congregations. 
They  met,  not  at  the  altar  where  the  sacrifice  was  offered,  but  at  the 
table  of  the  family  fellowship ;  as  we  meet,  not  at  the  cross,  where 
Christ  our  Passover  was  sacrificed  for  us;  but  at  a  table  expressive 
of  the  family  fellowship  of  all  believers  in  the  reconciliation  effected 
by  the  blood  of  Jesus.  The  Jews  met  without  a  Priest;  all  that  per- 
tained to  the  office  of  Priest  having  been  finished  at  the  temple.  We 
meet  at  the  Lord's  Supper  without  any  mere  human  Priest,^  for  all 
that  pertains  to  the  ofh'ce  of  a  Priest,  in  our  reconciliation  to  God  was 
finished  when  Christ  offered  up  himself,  "once  for  a//,"  on  the  al- 
tar of  the  cross  ;  or  else  is  being  perfected  in  his  present  ever-living 
intercession  within  the  veil,  before  the  mercy-seat  in  heaven.  The 
Jews  met  to  feed  upon  what  had  elsewhere  been  offered  as  a  propi- 
tiatory sacrifice  to  God.  Christians  meet  to  feed,  by  faith,  with 
thanksgiving,  spiritually  upon  a  propitiatory  sacrifice,  long  since  of- 
fered, even  the  flesh  and  blood  of  Jesus,  by  which  we  draw  nigh  to 
God.  The  Jewish  Passover  was  of  two  parts,  "  the  sacrifice  of  the 
Lord's  Passover,"  and  ihe  feast  of  the  Lord's  Passover;  the  propi- 
tiatory offering  at  the  temple,  and  the  eucharistic  supper  on  that  offer- 

tOf  course  I  mean  priest  in  the  scasc  of  a  sacrifccr. 


mg,  in  the  family  dwelling.  It  was  as  much  commanded  lliat  the 
1'east  should  be  in  the  house,  and  not  at  the  altar  in  the  temple,  as 
that  the  sacrifice  should  be  at  the  altar  in  the  temple,  and  not  in  any 
private  house.  Our  Passover  is  of  like  two  parts,  the  sacrifice  and 
the  feast;  the  offering  of  the  Lamb  of  God,  and  the  encharistic  sup- 
per of  the  whole  household  of  faith,  partaking  of  that  Lamb.  In  the 
beginning  of  the  dispensation  of  the  Gospel,  the  sacrifice  of  our  pass- 
over  was  slain,  once  for  all.  Jesus  was  priest  and  victim.  The 
whole  period,  since  then,  and  to  the  end  of  the  world,  is  the  Feast 
of  the  Lord's  Passover,  during  which  each  believer,  every  day,  is 
living  by  faith,  in  the  secret  of  his  own  heart,  upon  the  sacrifice  of 
Christ,  as  all  his  life  and  hope  ;  and  the  whole  household  of  faith 
are,  at  stated  periods,  assembling  together  to  express  and  declare  in 
the  sacrament  of  the  breaking  ot  bread,  their  common  dependence  on, 
and  their  common  thankfulness  for,  that  one  perfect  and  sufficient  ob- 
lation and  satisfaction  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world. 

As  the  Jews  were  not  allowed  to  unite  the  offering  and  the  eating, 
the  priestly  sacrifice  and  the  euclvaristic  feast,  but  '.yere  commanded 
to  separate  them  in  point  of  place  and  time ;  so  we  cannot,  by  any 
possibility  unite  them  under  the  Gospel.  The  sacrifice  for  us  was 
offered  eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  "  once  for  all."  It  cannot  he 
repeated.  The  feast  alone  remains — a  f«,ast  commemorative  of  a  sac~ 
rifice,  but  not  a  sacrifice  of  commemoration,  except  as  the  offering  of 
prayer  and  thanksgiving  is  figuratively  a  sacrifice,  and  each  commu- 
nicant, is  in  that  sense,  a  Priest. 

All  this  illustrates  how  entirely  it  was,  as  pertaining  to  the  design 
and  original  institution  of  the  Lord's  supper,  that  our  Lord  assembled 
the  twelve  around  a  common  household  table,  for  the  first  adminis- 
tration of  that  sacrament ;  and  how  little  connexion,  it  had,  with  any 
sacrifice,  as  then  being  offered,  or,  with  any  altar  as  then  present. 

Long  after  the  first  institution  of  the  Lord's  supper,  the  Christian 
Church  continued  to  keep  it  aloof  from  any  thing  expressive  of  sac- 
rifice, except  as  it  commemorated  that  of  Christ,  and  was  accompan- 
ied, on  the  part  of  communicants,  with  the  offering  of  their  prayers 
and  aim?.  Our  venerable  Bishop  White  expressed  his  belief  that 
"  the  term  '  altar,'  did  not  supplant  the  original  word  •  table,'  for  a 
considerable  time  after  the  apostolic  age."  ||  Suicer,  says  it  is  "  clear- 
er than  mid-day,  that  altars  were  not  in  the  primitive  church  ;"  (me- 
ridiana  luce  clarius.)  Basnage  says,  that  the  writings  of  men  of  the 
apostolic  age,  such  as  Clement,  Polycarp,  Justin,  never  employed  tin- 
words,  High  Priest,  Priest,  «fec.,  for  the  Christian  minister;  nor  did 
they  any  more  use  the  word  altar,  to  signify  the  table  of  the  Enrha- 
rist."  *  Bingharn,  our  learned  and  standard  author,  in  ecclesiastical 
antiquities,  says  that,  as  late  as  the  time  of  Alhanasius,  (4th  century,) 
the  churches  had  "  communion  tables  of  wood :"  and  of  the  churches 
of  Africa  and  Egypt,  particularly,  he  says  :  "  There  is  no  question  to 
be  made,  that  about  this  time,  "  the  altars  were  only  tables  of  wood.'* 

H  Diss.  on  the  Eucharist. 

*  Basnag.  Ann.  100,  v.  xii.     Mede,  with  all  his  learning,  muld  find  none  of 
the  fathers  using  "a/for,"  for  the  "  table,"  earlier  than  Tmullian.  AD.  2'JU. 


[10] 

In  llic  year  f>00,  n  general  decree  was  made  in  France,  M  that  no  altar 
should  be  consecrated,  hut  such  as  should  be  made  of  stone  only." 
And  Bingham  says,  "this  seems  to  he  the  first  public  act  of  that  na- 
ture, that  we  have  upon  authentic  record,  in  ancient  history.  And 
from  the  time  of  this  change  iu  the  matter  of  them,  the  form,  or  fash- 
ion of  them  changed  likewise.  For,  whereas,  before,  they  were  in 
the  form  of  tables,  they  now  began  to  be  erected  more  like  altars."  t 

This,  comparatively,  modern  use  of  the  form  of  an  altar,  instead  of 
ihatof  a  table,  is  strongly  asserted  by  Bishop  Jewel,  in  his  Defence  of 
his  Apology  for  the  Church  of  England,  against  the  Jesuit  Harding, 
'•  As  for  the  altars,"  he  says, "  which  the  Donatists  broke  down,  (in 
the  churches  of  the  4th  century)  they  were  certainly  tables  of  wood, 
Niich  as  ?/'c  have,  and  not  heaps  of  stones,  such  as  ye  have.  St.  Au- 
gustine saith,  the  Donatists,  in  their  fury,  broke  down  the  altar-boards. 
His  words  be  these:  Lignis  ejusdem  altaris  eff'ractis.  Likewise 
saith  Athanasius  of  the  like  fury  of  the  Arians  ;  SttbseUite,  thronton. 
mensain  Ugncam  ct  tabulas  ecctesiie  and  csetera  qu;e  prolerunt,  forix 
data,  combusscriint.  They  carried  forth  and  burnt  the  seats,  the  pul- 
pit, Ike  wooden  board,  the  church  tables,  &c..  Touching  your  stone 
altars  Beatus  Rhenanus  saith,  In  nostris  Basilicis,  Jlrarum  super  ad- 
tlititia  strurtiiranovltatem  prx  se  fcrt;  in  our  churches,  the  build- 
ing up  of  altars,  added  to  the  rest,  declareth  a  novelty.  This  learned 
man  telleth  you,  Mr.  Harding,  that  your  stone  altars  are  but  newly 
brought  into  the  church  of  God,  and  that  our  communion  tables  arc 
old  and  ancient,  and  have  been  used  from  the  beginning.  We  have 
such  altars  as  Christ,  his  apostles,  and  St.  Augustine,  Optetus,  and 
other  catholic  and  holy  Fathers,  had  and  used."  ^ 

Bishop  Babingtcm,  in  his  notes  on  Exodus,  published  in  1601,  says, 
11  The  altars  used  in  popery  are  not  warranted  by  this  example,  (i.  e. 
of  the  Jewish  altars.)  But  that  the  primitive  churches  used  commu- 
nion tables,  as  we  do  now,  of  boards  and  wood,  not  altars,  as  they  do, 
of  stone.  Origen  was  about  200  years  after  Christ,  and  he  saith  that 
Celsus  objected  to  it  as  a  fault  to  Christians,  Quod  nee  imagines,  nee 
tcmpla,  ncc  aras  haberent :  that  they  had  neither  images,  nor  tem- 
ples, nor  altars.  Arnobius,  after  him,  saith  the  same  of  the  heathens  : 
Jlccusatis  nos  quod  ncc  ternpla  habeamus  nee  aras,  nee  imagines. — 
Gerson  saith  that  Sylvester  first  caused  stone  altars  to  be  made.  Up- 
on this  occasion,  in  some  places,  stone  altars  were  used  for  steadi- 
ness and  continuance,  wooden  tables  having  been  before  used ;  but, 
I  say,  in  some  plaaes,  not  in  all.  For  St.  Augustine  saith  that  in  his 
lime,  in  Africa,  they  were  made  of  wood.  For  the  Donatists,  saitb 
he,  break  in  sunder  the  altar  boards.  Again,  the  deacon's  duty  was 
to  remove,  the  altar.  Chrysostom  calleth  it  the  holy  board.  St.  Au- 
gustine, the  table  of  the  Lord.  Athanasius,  Mcnsam  Ugncam,  the 
table  of  wood.  Yet  was  this  communion-table  called  an  altar,  not 
that  it  was  so,  but  only  by  allusion,  metaphorically,  as  Christ  is  called 
an  altar,  or  our  hearts  bo  called  altars,  &c.  Mark,  with  yourselves, 
therefore,  the  newness  of  this  point,  for  stone  altars,  in  comparison  of 

t  Bingham's  Antiquities,  b.  vii,  c.  vi.  §  15. 
',  Defence  of  Ajiol.  P.  i,  eh.  iii,  div.  .'{. 


[11] 

cur  ancient  use  of  comrannion  tables,  and  let  Popery  and  his  parls 
fall,  and  truth  and  sound  antiquity  be  regarded."  § 

The  learned  Perkins,  one  of  the  greater  iights  at  Cambridge,  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  16th  century,  says:  "About  the  year  400,  the  use 
of  altars  began,  but  not  for  sacrifice,  but  for  the  honour  and  memory 
•of  the  martyrs."  || 

It  would  be  easy  to  shew  that  the  use  of  altars  originated  contem- 
poraneously with  that  inordinate  veneration  for  the  relics  of  saints 
and  martyrs,  which  was  very  soon  matured  into  that  idolatrous  ado- 
ration, which  is  now  one  of  the  grievous  crimes  of  the  Church  of 
Rome.  It  is  little  to  the  credit  of  altars,  in  the  Christian  church,  to 
look  back  to  the  various  growths,  of  astonishing  superstition,  which 
grew  up,  in  company  with  their  use.  Mosheim,  speaking  of  the  4th 
century,  says  :  '•  An  enormous  train  of  different  superstitions  were, 
gradually,  substituted  in  the  place  of  true  religion,  and  genuine  piety. 
This  odious  revolution  was  owing  to  a  variety  of  causes.  A  ridicu- 
lous precipitation  in  receiving  new  opinions  ;  a  preposterous  desire 
of  imitating  the  Pagan  rites,  and  of  blending  them  with  the  Christian 
worship,  and  that  idle  propensity,  which  the  generality  of  mankind 
have,  towards  a  gaudy  and  ostentatious  religion,  all  contributed  to  es- 
tablish the  reign  of  superstition  upon  the  ruins  of  Christianity  : 
The  virtues  that  had  formerly  been  ascribed  to  the  heathen  temples, 
to  their  lustrations,  to  the  statues  of  their  gods  and  heroes,  were  now 
attributed  to  Christian  churches,  to  water  consecrated  by  certain  forms 
of  prayer,  and  to  the  images  of  holy  men.  *  *  The  worship  of 
the  martyrs,  was  modelled,  by  degrees,  according  to  the  religious  ser- 
vices that  were  paid  to  the  gods,  before  the  coming  of  Christ."  ^f 

To  such  heights  of  superstition  and  imposture,  had  the  veneration 
of  relics  arrived,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  4th  century,  that  the  5th 
Council  of  Carthage  was  obliged  to  resist  its  more  odious  extravagan- 
ces. The  following  extracts,  from  the  14th  canon  of  that  Council, 
will  show  in  what  connexion  altars  arose  in  the  Church.  "  It  is  de- 
creed that  the  altars,  which  are  set  up  every  where,  in  the  fields,  oj, 
in  the  ways,,  as  monuments  of  martyrs,  in  which  no  bodies  or  relics 
of  martyrs  are  proved  to  be  buried  ;  bo  overthrown  by  the  Bishops 
of  those  places,  if  it  may  be.  But,  if,  on  account  of  tumults  of  the 
people,  that  cannot  be  done,  yet  let  the  people  he  admonished  that 
they  frequent  not  those  places,  &c.  And  let  no  memorial  of  martyrs 
be  allowed  and  accepted,  except  the  body,  or  some  undoubted  relics 
be  there,  or  that  some  original  of  their  habitation  or  suffering,  b<; 
there  delivered,  from  a  most  faithful  beginning.  As  for  those  altars, 
that  are  set  up,  in  every  place,  by  dreams,  and  vain  revelations  of 
any  men,  let  them,  by  all  means,  be  disallowed." 

Faithful  to  this  original  connection,  between  altars  and  tombs,  with 
the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  supper  on  the  top,  and  dead  men's  bones 
within,  is  the  present  use  of  the  altar  in  the  church  of  Rome.  The 
Rhemish  Annotators  on  the  New  Testament,  commenting  on  Rev. 

§  Bishop  Babington's  work*  Ed.  1622,  p.  307. 

||  Perkin's  works,  II ;  p.  553. 

H  Mosheim's  Eccl.  Hist.  cent.  iv.  p.  11.  ^  2. 


[12] 

\i.  ;t.  uh  r-  iii-i-iirs  ill."  \isioiiof  the  soida  under  the  altur,  s;ty. 
"Christ,  a-;  nriii.  (n<>  d»u!>l.)  is  this  nltar,  under  which  the  souls  of 
all ',in;irtyrs  lie  in  heaven,  expecting  their  bodies,  as  Christ,  their 
head,  hath  his  body  there  already.  And  for  correspondence  to  their 
place,  or  state,  in  heaven,  the  Church  laycth,  commonly,  their  bod- 
ies also,  or  relics,  near,  or  under  the  altars, 'where  our  Saviour's 
body  is  offered  in  the  holy  Mass  ;  and  hath  a  special  proviso,  that 
no  altars  be  erected,  or  consecrated,  without  some  part  of  a  saint's 
body  or  relics."  And  this  "  special  proviso,"  is  founded  on  the  as- 
sumption that  "  the  relics  of  the  saints  add  not  a  little  to  the  sanctity 
of  the  sacramont,  when  they  are  contained  inrthe  altar  ;"  thus  fully 
carrying  out  the  abominable  doctrine  that  we  are  assisted  by  the 
merits  of  the  saints  in  obtaining  justification  through  the  merits  of 
Christ. 

Conformed  to  \\ustomb-likejise  of  Romish  altars,  and  their  monu- 
mental origin^is  their  almost  invariable  shape.  They  are  in  the 
shape  of  arks  or Chests,  resembling,  very  closely,  in  general  appear- 
ance, those  oblong  structures  of  stone,  or  brick,  surmounted  with  a 
marble  slab,  which,  from  time  immemorial,  have  been  erected  over 
the  dead,  as  monuments  to  their  memory.  *2 

This  peculiar,  chest-like  form  of  the  Romish  altar,  is  wholly  un- 
like any  thing  under  the  name  of  altar,  of  which  we  have  any  ac- 
count. The  altars  which  Moses  was  directed  to  make  for  the  wor- 
ship of  Israel,  and  those  which  were  afterwards  set  up,  according  to 
that  model  in  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  had  no  such  character.  Bing- 
ham  says  that^when  such  structures  for  altars,  began  to  be  used  in 
the  5th  century,  "they  were  built  like  a  tomb,  as  if  it  were  some' mon- 
ument of  a  martyr ;"  and  he  quotes  an  eminent  authority  (Bona,) 
-.  saying  that  specimens  of  such  ancient  monuments  to  martyrs  were 
still  found,  in  his  day,  in  the  catacombs  of  Rome,  and  other  places.  *3 

It  is  not  difficult  to  trace  the  steps  by  which  the  martyr's  tomb  came 
to  be  so  universally  the  Romish  altar.  It  is  well  known  that,  at  an 
early  period,  Christians  took  great  pleasure  in  honouring  the  memo- 
ry of  martyrs,  by  erecting  tombs,  as  monuments,  over  the  place  of 
their  burial,  and  in  assembling  there  for  worship,  on  the  anniversa- 
ry of  their  death.  On  these  occasions,  the  martyr's  monument  ser- 
ved as  a  table,  on  which  they  celebrated  the  Eucharist. 

B«t~now  the  habit  of  calling  the  table  an   altar,  was  fast  driving 

*2  "The  altar  which  has  been  erected"  (under  Tractarian  auspices)  "at  the 
Round  Church,  Cambridge,"  (and  which  has  been  condemned  by  an  ecclesias- 
tical court,  as  illegal)  "  is  a  mass  of  stone  work,  rising  as  an  erection  from  the 
ground,  and  attached  to  the  fabric  of  the  Church.  The  only  point  in  which  it 
differs  from  the  tomb-like  altars,  generally  seen  in  Romish  churches,  is  that  it 
is  not  closed  in  front,  (though  it  is  on  the  sides,)  the  Romish  altars  being  gen- 
erally closed  all  round,  the  interior  being  devoted  to  the  reception  of  relics, 
without  which,  there  is  a  very  general  feeling,  among  Romanists,  that  the  eu- 
charist  cannot  be  properly  celebrated  upon  them.  But  this  tomb-like  form  is 
not  reckoned  essential  to  the  being  of  an  altar,  and  occasionally,  I  believe,  a 
portion  of  the  front  is  left  open,  that  the  relics  may  be  seen,  and  protected  on- 
ly, by  a  trellis  work  of  brass  or  other  metal." — Goode's  Altars  Prohibited  in  the 
Church  of  England. 

•3  BinjhaiiTa  Antiq.  b.  viii.  c.  vi.  §  15. 


•out  the  true  and  primitive  name,  as  Christians,  out  of  a  most  degra* 
ding  disposition  to  conciliate  the  heathen  by  adopting  their  names 
and  conforming  to  their  customs,  were  getting  more  fond  of  speaking 
of  the  Lord's  supper,  as  a  sacrifice,  and  its  minister  as  a  Priest. — 
Thus  Jerome  is  quoted  by  a  Romish  Annotator,  as  "  calling  the  bod- 
ies or  bones  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  the  'altars'  of  Christ,  be- 
cause of  this  sacrifice  offered  over  and  upon  them."  *  Soon  church- 
es were  built  over  some  of  those  tombs,  and  the  relics  were  removed 
from  others  into  churches,  and,  of  course,  were  enshrined  in  tombs, 
as  became  the  sepulture  of  the  illustrious  dead.  And  there,  as  be- 
fore, in  the  open  fields,  the  eucharistic  sacrifice  was  offered  over, 
and  upon  them  ;  the  doctrine  having  now  grown  up  that  "prayer 
was  the  more  acceptable  to  God,  when  made  before  the  relics  of  the 
saints."  As  the  doctrine  of  the  real,  corporeal  presence  of  the  body 
of  Christ  in  the  Eucharist  gained  prevalence,  so  grew  that  of  a  real 
sacrifice  and  a  literal  altar  ;  and  as  the  idea  of  uniting  the  merits  of 
Christ's  sacrifice,  with  the  supererogatory  merits  of  saints,  for.  th*- 
•remission  of  sins,  made  progress,  so  seemed  it  the  more  appropriate 
that  in  the  so  called  "  sacrament  of  the  altar,"  the  relics  of  the 
saints,  and  the  body  of  Christ,  should  be  associated  together,  the  one 
upon,  the  other  under,  the  altar.  Thus  it  cams  to  pass  that  the  on- 
ly form,  with  which  the  Church  of  Rome  learned  to  connect  the 
idea  of  a  Christian  altar,  was  that  of  a  Christian  martyr's  tomb. — 
Such  was  the  form  which  she  handed  down  to  the  age  of  the  Refor- 
mation, and  to  the  present ;  sacred  now,  in  the  eyes  of  her  children, 
as  identified  with  the  whole  history  of  her  Missal  solemnities,  and 
her  miracle-working  relics.  And  now,  even  among  Protestant  Chris- 
tians, so  is  the  association  of  ideas  affected  by  the  outward  forms, 
which  the  pompous  ceremonial  of  Romish  worship  exhibits,  espe- 
cially when  they  appear  under  the  garb  of  antiquity,  and  are  identi- 
fied with  a  favorite  style  of  ecclesiastical  architecture,  that  when  un- 
der the  influence  of  a  false  architectural  taste,  or  a  wrong  doctrinal 
sympathy,  our  people  attempt  to  erect  altars,  instead  of  tables,  in 
their  churches,  none  ever  think  of  copying  the  models  which  God 
gave  to  Moses  for  the  worship  of  Israel,  and  which  are  hallowed  in 
our  thoughts,  by  all  the  sacred  solemnities  of  the  Jewish  Church,  as 
divinely  ordained  types  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ.  To  imitate  the 
brazen  altar  of  burnt  offering,  or  the  golden  altar  of  incense,  the  on- 

*  Gregory  Martin,  Fulke's  Defence,  p.  516.  The  doctrine  of  any  sacrifice 
in  the  Lord's  supper,  b-tt  as  th«  commemoration  of  that  of  the  cross,  was  called 
metonymically,  a  sacrifice,  or  as  the  prayers  of  communicants,  were  figurative- 
ly called  sacrifices  did  not  get  place  in  the  Church  till  long  after;  but  there 
was  now  a  dangerous  use  of  figurative  terms,  and  a  dangerous  fondness  for  the 
introduction  of  heathen  ritrs  with  Christian  worship,  out  of  which  very  natu- 
rally grew,  by  and  by,  the  full  doctrine  of  a  literal  sacrifice,  altar  and  priest- 
hood. Bishop  White  says,  "  there  were  no  sentiments,  for  300  years,  in  the 
Christian  Church,  which  threatened  to  lead,  even  by  remote  consequence,  to 
such  an  extreme,"  as  the  Romish  errors  on  this  subject. — Lecture  on  the  Sa- 
craments. 

In  the  4th  cen-tury,  Eusebius  said,  that  "  the  unbloody  and  reasonable  sac- 
rifices, which  our  blessed  Saviour  taught  his  followers  to  offer,  were  such  as 
were  to  be  performed  by  prayer,  an-d  the  mystical  service  of  blessing  and  prms- 
ing  God.1' — Df  laudibvs  Constantini,  quoted  by  Mede. 


[14] 

ly  real  altar-forms  thai  we  kim\v  of,  exn-pt  those  of  heathen  worship, 
would  at  once  seem  too  Jewish.  To  have  something  inor :  Chris- 
tian, we  go  to  the  altar  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  for  a  model ;  which 
is  Christian,  just  so  far  as  the  idolatrous  worship  of  the  wafer,  in  the 
M:t>-v  and  of  dead  men's  bones  beneath,  is  Christian,  and  no  more. — 
When  one  sees,  in  aProt.  Kpis.  Church,  instead  of  a  proper  table. 
such  as  he  has  a  right  to  find,  for  the  holy  supper,  what  is  now  call- 
i-ii  an  altar,  an  oblong  chest  or  ark,  of  stone  or  wood,  closed  in  on 
all  sides,  as  if  some  sacred  mysteries  werv  concealed  therein:  what 
edifying  thoughts  is  it  calculated  to  awaken  in  his  mind  .'  Is  he  re- 
minded of  the  institution  of  the  Lord's  supper  ?  But  then  there  was 
only  a  common  table.  Does  it  symbolize,  to  his  eye,  the  nature  of 
the  Lord's  supper  1  He  knows  of  no  sacrifice  therein,  and  there- 
fore no  altar.  Does  it  teach  him  his  privilege  and  duty,  as  a  believ- 
er, spiritually  to  feed  by  faith,  upon  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  once  of- 
fered on  the  cross  ?  He  wants  a  table,  not  an  altar,  to  suggest  that 
lesson.  Does  it  stand  before  him,  surrounded  with  edifying  and  in- 
spiring associations,  arising  out  of  the  recollection  of  the  primitive 
and  pure  ages  of  the  gospel  ?  Those  ages  had  no  such  device.  Is  it 
even  connected,  in  his  mind,  with  the  venerable  usages  of  the  Protes- 
tant Episcopal  Church  ?  It  is  a  novelty  among  them  !  What  then  ! 
It  is  fitted  only  to  remind  him  of  its  own  original,  in  the  midst  of  the 
rankest  growths  of  spiritual  deformity,  when  it  was  a  mere  martyr's 
tomb  ;  its  top,  the  birth-place  of  the  idolatry  of  the  Mass  ;  its  interior 
a  depository  of  worshipped  bones  ;  a  most  fit  symbol  of  that  whole 
system  of  spiritual  bondage  and  death,  all  centering  in  the  so  called 
"sacrament  of  the  altar,"  under  which  the  Church  of  Rome  has  al- 
ways, since  she  became  what  she  is,  buried  the  gospel,  and  impris- 
oned the  minds  of  men,  wherever  she  has  held  dominion.  If  there 
be  any  thing  edifying  to  a  communicant  at  the  Lord's  board,  in  con- 
templating what  suggests  nothing  but  the  remembrance  of  all  that  is 
false  and  superstitious  in  popery,  then  indeed  is  such  an  altar  edify- 
ing. The  primitive  table  is  just  the  opposite. 

We  return  to  our  history.  I  need  not  tell  you  that  such  was  the 
altar  found  in  the  churches  of  England,  at  the  period  of  the  Reforma- 
tion. But  tt  did  not  remain  long  undisturbed.  With  the  revival  of 
gospel  truth,  concerning  the  nature  of  the  Lord's  supper,  came  the 
restoration  of  the  primitive  table  for  its  celebration.  In  1550,  Rid- 
ley, Bishop  of  London,  issued  Injunctions  to  the  churches  of  his  dio- 
cese, exhorting,  that  all  altars  should  be  taken  down,  and  that  they 
should  "  set  up  the  Lord's  board,  after  the  form  of  an  honest  table." 
And  one  of  his  reasons  was,  that  "  the  form  of  a  table  may  more  turn 
away  the  people  from  the  old  superstitious  opinions  of  the  popish 
mass,  and  to  the  right  use  of  the  Lord's  supper."  t 

An  order,  to  the  same  effect  was  issued  the  same  year.  Under 
date  of  Nov.  19,  we  read,  in  King  Edward's  Journal,  the  following 
entry  :  "  There  were  letters  sent  to  every  Bishop  to  pluck  down  the 
altars."\\  Day,  Bishop  of  Chichester,  having  refused  compliance  was 

t  Ridley's  Works,  P.  S.  Kd.  pp.  319,  :; 
||  Burnot's  Ifis=t.  of  Kef.  vol.  11,  fol 


[M] 

imprisoned.  When  Mary  succeeded  to  the  throne,  Romanism  was 
re-enthroned,  and  of  course,  tables  were  cast  out  of  the  churches,  and 
altars  restored.  It  was  then  made  a  serious  charge  against  the  Re- 
formers that  they  had  taken  away  the  altars ;  to  which  Bp.  Ridley, 
on  the  eve  of  his  martyrdom,  answered  :  "  As  for  the  taking  down  of 
the  altars,  it  was  done  upon  just  considerations;  for  that  they  seemed 
to  come  too  nigh  the  Jews'  use  ;  neither  was  the  Supper  of  the  Lord 
at  any  time  better  ministered  or  more  duly  received  than  in  those  bet- 
ter days,  (the  reign  of  Edward,)  when  all  things  were  brought  to  the 
rites  and  usages  of  the  primitive  Church. "J 

On  the  return  of  the  Reformation,  under  Elizabeth,  altars  were  again 
cast  out  by  authority,  and  tables  were  restored.  In  1564-5,  certain 
"  advertisements  for  due  order  in  the  using  of  the  Lord's  Supper,"" 
were  "  set  forth  by  public  authority,"  in  which  it  was  ordered  that 
each  parish  should  provide  a  decent  table  standing  on  a  frame,  for 
the  communion  table. "§ 

In  1569,  Archbishop  Parker  issued  to  his  diocese  certain  Visita- 
tion Articles,  one  of  which  is  thus  :  "  Whether  you  have  in  your  par- 
ish churches  all  things  necessary  for  Common  Prayer  and  adminis- 
tration of  the  sacraments,  especially,  ***  the  Homilies,  a  convenient 
pulpit,  well  placed  ;  a  comely  and  decent  table  for  the  holy  commun- 
ion, ***  and  whether  your  altars  be  taken  down  according  to  the  com- 
mandment in  that  behalf  given." *2 

In  1571,  were  issued  the  canons  of  the  Synod  of  that  year,  which 
enjoined  that  the  Church  Wardens  should  provide  "a  table  of  join- 
er1 s  work  for  the  administration  of  the  holy  communion."*3 

In  the  same  year,  Grindal,  while  Archbishop  of  York,  and  after- 
wards, when  in  the  see  of  Canterbury,  set  forth  Injunctions  directing 
the  church  wardens  to  provide  in  every  parish,  a  comely  and  decent 
table  STANDING  ON  A  FRAME,  and  to  see  that  all  altars  be  utterly  ta- 
ken down."* 4 

Now  it  was  with  this  well  understood  character  of  a  table  for  the 
communion,  as  distinguished  from  an  altar  of  sacrifice,  "  an  honest 
table"  "a  table  of  joiner's  work,"  "a  table  of  wood  standing  on  a 
frame,"  that  in  1603,  the  present  canon  of  the  Church  of  England 
(the  82d,)  was  enacted;  which  requires  that  "there  shall  be  a  decent 
communiontable  in  every  church."  What  the  canon  means  by  "a 
table"  the  injunctions  I  have  cited  perfectly  determine.  Contempo- 
raneously with  the  Injunctions  published  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth, 
was  issued  our  Second  Book  of  Homilies,  in  one  of  which  we  are 
told  that  "  God's  house  is  well  adorned,  with  places  convenient  to  sit 
in,  with  the  pulpit  for  the  Preacher,  with  the  Lord's  table  for  the  min- 
istration of  his  holy  supper,  with  the  font  to  christen  in,"&c.:5  In 

"{Ridley's"  Works,  ?.  S.  Ed.  pp.  260,  281 

§  Quoted  from  Goodc's  Altars  Prohibited,  who  cites  Sparrow  and  Cardwell 
as  his  authorities. 

*2  Strypes'  Life  of  Parker,  app.  b.  II ;  No.  XI. 
*3  Quoted  by  Goodc,  from  Wilk.  IV  ;  266. 
*4  Grindal's  Works,  P.  S.  Ed.,  pp.  133, 131. 
*5  Homily  on  Repairing  of  Churches. 


[16] 

those  days  it  would  have  been  as  impossible  to  mistake  what  in  tfic 
laws  of  the  Ch.  of  England  was  meant  by  a  table,  in  distinction  from 
an  altar,  as  to  confound  a  pulpit  for  the  preacher^  with  a  font  for 
baptism. 

It  is  an  impressive  fact,  in  this  connexion  that  whereas  in  the  first 
Prayer  Book  of  Edward  vi,  1548,  the  word  altar  was  retained  in 
some  places,  where  a  literal  table  was  meant;  when  that  book  was 
revised  in  1552,  and  the  second  book  of  Edward  vi,  was  set  forth, 
that  word  was,  in  every  case  erased,  and  table  was  put  in  its  place. 
Thus  has  the  Prayer  Book  of  the  Church  of  England  remained  to 
this  day.  The  word  altar  is  not  there,  in  any  connection  with  the 
Lord's  supper.  It  was  struck  out  when  it  was  there,  as  not  accord- 
ing to  the  doctrine  of  the  Church.  Every  where  now,  the  word  is 
table.  Thus,  what  is  the  law  of  that  Church  according  to  her  ru- 
brics and  canons,  as  expounded  by  the  Visitation  Articles  and  In- 
junctions of  her  Bishops  and  Arch  Bishops,  by  the  decrees  of  synods, 
and  the  declarations  of  her  greatest  divines,  is  manifest  beyond  a  ra- 
tional question.  A  learned  writer  states  it  thus,  "  Theronly  thing 
which  properly  answers  the  legal  requisition  of  our  church,  must 
have  the  three  following  characteristics  : 

First,  As  to  material,  that  it  be  made  of  wood. 

Secondly,  As  to  form,  that  it  be  a  table  in  the  ordinary  sense  of 
the  word,  that  is,  a  horizontal  plane  resting  upon  a  frame  or  feet. 

Thirdly,  That  it  be  unattached,  in  any  part,  to  the  church,  so  as 
to  be  a  inoveable  table."  * 

The  recent  decision  of  the  highest  ecclesiastical  and  judicial  au- 
thority in  England,  commanding  the  altar  lately  erected  in  the  Round 
Church  in  Cambridge  to  be  removed,  as  illegal,  fully  confirms  alt 
that  we  have  now  said  as  to  the  law  of  the  Church  of  England  on 
this  subject. 

Before  leaving  this  historical  view,  it  will  be  edifying  to  reflect  up- 
on the  alternate  rise  and  fall  of  altars  and  tables,  in  the  history  of  the 
English  Church  according  as  Romish  or  Protestant  principles  pre- 
vailed. 

With  the  prevalence  of  the  Reformation  under  Edward,  the  sym- 
bol of  sacrifice  and  of  priestly  mediation,  fell  down  before  the  ark  of 
Christ's  holy  gospel,  and  the  primitive  symbol  of  the  communion- 
feast  at  which  all  believers  have  equal  rights  of  fellowship  with  their 
Lord  and  Saviour,  was  set  up  again  as  Christ  and  his  Apostles  left 
it.  But  with  the  return  of  the  dominion  of  popery,  under  Mary,  came 
back  the  priestly  altars,  and  the  casting  out  of  the  Lord's  table. '  The 
restoration  of  the  gospel  to  the  pulpits,  under  Elizabeth,  was  the  sig- 
nal for^the  restoration  of  the  symbol  of  its  blessed  feast  of  grace,  m 
Jesus  Christ,  When,  afterwards,  in  the  times  of  Archbishop  Laud, 
there  was  a  revival  of  Romish  sympathies  and  doctrines,  correspon- 
ding perfectly  in  spirit  and  principle  with  what  we  now  see,  in  a 
more  mature  developement  under  the  name  of  Tractarianism,  there 
was  an  equal  revival  of  zeal  for  altars,  and  there  were  those  who 
took  advantage  of  the  favour  known  to  be  secretly  felt  in  high  quur- 
•  Goodc's  Altars  Prohibited. 


[  17  ] 

ters  towards  such  things,  and  erected  altars  in  the  churches.  A  Bish- 
op (Montague,  of  Chichester,)  went  so  far  as  to  insert  in  his  visita- 
tion articles,  questions  which  were  intended  to  suggest  and  promote 
their  erection.  And  this  same  Bishop,  while  professedly  of  the  Prot- 
estant Church  of  England,  was,  in  his  heart,  an  apostate  to  the 
Church  of  Rome,  and  was,  at  that  time,  holding  secret  interviews 
with  the  Pope's  emissary,  then  in  England,  for  the  purpose  of  bring- 
ing about  a  union  of  the  Chnrch  of  England  and  Rome.  His  zeal 
for  altars  was  fitly  united  with  a  zeal  to  assure  Panzani,  "  that  he 
was  continually  employed  in  disposing  men's  minds,  both  by  word 
and  writing,  for  a  re-union  with  Rome;"  and  that  both  he  and 
many  of  his  brethren  were  prepared  to  conform  themselves  to  the 
method  and  discipline  of  the  Gallican  church,  where  the  civil  rights 
were  well  guarded  ;  and  "  as  for  the  aversion  (said  he)  we  discover 
in  our  sermons  and  printed  books,  they  are  things  of  form,  chiefly 
to  humour  the  populace  and  not  to  be  much  regarded."  \  Wo  can- 
not but  bo  reminded,  by  these  sad  words,  of  certain  strong  expres- 
sions against  Rome,  put  out  in  the  earlier  writings  of  certain  leading 
Tracturian  authors,  and  which  had  the  effect,  as  was  intended,  of 
convincing  many  that  those  men  were  strong  opposers,  and  perhaps 
the  only  effectual  opposers  of  Romanism  ;  which  expressions  having 
done  their  work,  kave  been  taken  back,  with  the  not-unintelligible  in- 
timation that  they  were  not  sincere,  only  words  for  the  times,  while 
some  of  their  authors  have  apostatised  to  the  Church  of  Rome,  in 
form,  and  others  evidently  in  heart. 

By  such  men,  altars  were  revived  in  the  days  of  Laud.  When 
those  days  were  passed,  and  the  Church  of  England  had  weathered 
the  storm  which,  by  a  fierce  and  desolating  reaction,  they  had  raised, 
no  more  was  heard  of  altars  ;  except  as  a  lingering  survivor  of  the 
non-juring  divines  kept  up  the  taste  for  sacrifices  and  priests.  From 
that  time,  until  the  recent  revival  of  Romish  doctrine  and  feeling 
among  some  members  of  the  English  Church,  it  is  not  known  that 
any  thing  but  "an  honest  table"  was  placed  in  the  churches  of  that 
land.  But  now  just  so  far  as  Tractarianism  has  extended  its  virus 
through  the  body  of  our  mother  church,  producing  its  legitimate  fruits 
in  a  real,  though,  partially,  masked  Romanism,  has  there  appeared  a 
solemn  zeal  for  a  real  sacrifice  in  the  Lord's  supper ;  for  a  sacrificing 
priesthood  in  the  Christian  ministry  ;  for  a  confinement  of  the  dispen- 
sation of  gospel  grace  to  the  ministrations  of  a  priest  in  the  sacrifice 
of  the  Eucharist;  and,  by  necessary  consequence,  an  altar  in  the 
church,  as  the  only  thing  at  which  a  priest  can  appropriately  stand,  in 
his  mediatorial  office,  and  offer  the  body  of  Christ  as  a  propitiation 
for  the  sins  of  the  faithful. 

This  history  of  the  alternate  revival  and  declension  of  zeal  for  al- 
tars and  tables,  makes  it  so  evident  with  what  kind  of  sympathy,  Ro- 
mish, or  Protestant,  each  is  doctrinally  connected,  and  how  far  it  is 
from  being  a  matter  of  indifference  whether  we  have  one  or  the  other, 
that  he  who  runs  may  read. 

t  Memoirs  of  Gregario  Panzani,  quoted  by  Goode  in  bia  introduction  to 
Jackson  on  the  Church. 


[18] 

I  am  now  prepared  to  state  four  reasons  for  the  determination  of 
which  I  have  notified  you,  that  I  will  not  consecrate  any  church, 
hereafter,  in  which  the  structure  for  the  ministration  of  the  Lord's 
supper  is  of  an  altar-firm-,  or  in  which  there  is  not,  for  that  use,  a 
table,  in  the  ordinary  sense,  as  the  permanent  furniture. 

1st,  The  Rubric,  of  our  Communion  Office  requires  such  a  Table. 

Our  Prayer  Book,  as  originally  set  forth,  like  that  of  the  Church  of 
England,  no  where  used  the  word  altar,  with  reference  to  the  Lord's 
supper.  It  continued  some  fifteen  years  in  that  state,  every  where 
speaking  of  the  table.  It  was  not  until  the  addition  of  the  Office  for 
the  Institution  of  Ministers,  that  the  word  altar  obtained  admission, 
even  in  a  figurative  sense.  Of  this,  more  by  and  by.  Only  in  that 
office  is  it  now  found.  In  the  Rubric,  at  the  head  of  the  communion 
office,  it  is  directed  that  "  the  table,  at  the  Communion,  having  a  fair 
linen  cloth  upon  it,  shall  stand  in  the  body  of  the  church,  or  in  the 
chancel." 

It  would  be  perfectly  consistent  with  the  order  of  the  church,  as 
thus  set  forth,  were  the  communion-table  placed  in  the  middle  of  one 
of  the  aisles,  if  the  space  around  were  large  enough  to  be  convenient 
for  communicants  ;  ami  there  entirely  open,  unprotected  by  rails,  in- 
stead of  being,  as  is  our  present  custom,  enclosed  within  the  barrier 
of  the  chancel.  However  inexpedient  this  might  be,  it  would  not  be 
inconsistent  with  the  provisions  of  our  Church.  Consistently  with 
tho!"e  provisions,  the  table  might  be  sometimes  ia  one  part  of  the  body 
of  the  church,  and  sometimes  in  another.  And  while  we  think  of  it 
as  a  table,  only  the  symbol  of  the  spiritual  feast,  of  the  Lord's  family, 
there  is  nothing  intrinsically  objectionable  in  this.  But  what  would 
it  be  were  it  a  real  altar,  with  the  sacrifice  of  the  Lord's  body  offered 
thereon,  and  the  special  sacredness  of  a  mediating,  sacrificing  Priest,  of- 
ficiating thereat  ?  The  very  idea  implies  separation,  a  privileged 
place,  ground  specially  holy,  as  the  court  of  the  Priests  in  the  tem- 
ple, in  which  stood  the  altar  of  sacrifice,  was  separated  from  the  court 
of  Israel. 

The  Rubric  says  "  the.  table."  It  no  where  goes  into  any  account 
of  what  it  means  by  a  table.  Of  course  then  we  are  intentionally 
left  to  understand  a  table  in  the  usual  sense. 

To  say  that  because  an  altar  may,  in  a  certain  accommodated 
sense,  be  called  a  table,  it  is  therefore  consistent  with  the  rubric,  to 
have  a  literal  altar  in  our  churches,  is  just  as  weak  as  to  say  that 
whatever  may  in  any  figurative,  accommodated,  or  unusual  sense  be 
termed  a  table,  however  perfectly  unlike  what  all  are  accustomed  to 
understand  by  a  table,  is  contemplated  by  the  Rubric.  You  may  go 
out  into  a  grave-yard  and  serve  up  your  family  meal  upon  a  tomb- 
stone, and  hence  call  it  a  table,  because  you  have  used  it  for  a  table. 
But  is  it  a  table  in  any  ordinary  or  proper  sense  ?  And  would  it  be 
rubrical  to  place  it  in  the  Church  for  the  feast  of  the  Lord's  Passover  ' 
Would  it  be  an  appropriate  symbol  of  the  feast  of  the  household  of 
faith  ?  Why  not  as  much  as  a  Romish  altar  ? 

But  what  our  Rubric  means  by  the  table,  is  easily  and  perfectly 
settled  by  the  sense  of  the  Church  of  England.  Our  rubric  is  pre- 
cisely hers.  Her  doctrine  and  practice,  as  to  the  ministration  of  ^» 


[19] 

Eucharist,  is,  by  universal  acknowledgment,  ours.  All  that  we  have, 
in  those  respects,  came  through  her.  Consequently  the  whole  his- 
tory of  the  removal  of  altars  and  the  substitution  of  "honest  tables" 
of  wood,  standing  on  a  frame;"  all  the  government — orders,  episcopal 
injunctions  and  judicial  decisions,  by  which  the  law  of  the  Church  of 
England  is  so  clearly  interpreted,  apply  with  equal  conclusiveness  to 
the  interpretation  of  ours,  and  establish  that  what  is  meant  by  a  table 
for  the  communion,  cannot  admit  of  any  thing  but  a  table  in  the  ordi- 
nary sense,  requiring  no  ingenious  eye  to  see  how  it  can  be  consid- 
ered a  table,  but  intelligible,  in  this  respect  to  all  descriptions  of  men. 

I  know  it  is  pleaded  that  in  the  Office  for  the  Institution  of 
Ministers  the  table  is  called  "the  altur."  But  I  cannot  perceive  any 
room  to  argue  from  that  source  in  justification  of  an  altar-form  struc- 
ture, instead  of  a  table,  in  our  churches.  I  have  already  told  you  of 
the  late  introduction  of  that  office.  It  speaks  of  "the  altar"  some 
six  or  seven  times.  Was  such  a  thing  as  an  altar,  in  a  literal  sense, 
known  in  the  churches,  at  that  time?  We  answer  no,  unless  possi- 
bly as  some  very  rare  exception,  to  a  general  custom.  What  could 
the  Office  then  have  meant  by  the  altar,  but  the  table ;  and  inas- 
much as  the  table  was  no  figurative  table,  but  the  literal  thing,  in  the 
ordinary  sense  how  could  it  be  called  an  altar  but  in  a  figurative 
sense,  just  as  we  speak  of  "the  family  altar ;"  and  why  should  we 
any  more  infer  from  such  use,  that  it  is  consistent  with  good  taste,  or 
church-propriety,  to  have  a  literal  altar  in  our  houses  of  worship,  than 
•we  should  infer  from  the  common  expression  "family  altar"  that 
people  really  erect  altars  in  their  houses  of  residence;  or  why,  if  the 
Prayer  Hook  speaks  literally  when  it  speaks  of  "the  table"  and  fig- 
uratively when  it  speaks  of  "the  altar"  should  we  have  for  our  arti- 
cle of  furniture  for  the  communion  literally  an  altar,  and  only  figura- 
tively a  table? 

But  all  this  aside.  It  does  seem  most  singular  that  we  should  al- 
low a  word  used  only  some  five  or  six  times  in  the  whole  Prayer  Book, 
and  that  in  an  office  so  recent  and  so  little  used,  to  overrule  the  use 
and  interpretation  of  centuries  ;  that  instead  of  requiring  it  to  take 
its  interpretation  from  all  the  communion  office,  where,  if  any  where, 
the  true  doctrine  and  use  of  the  Church,  on  this  head,  should  be  ex- 
pected, and  from  the  whole  history  of  the  Prayer  Book,  and  of  the  Prot. 
Ep.  Church,  we  should  on  the  contrary  oblige  these  venerable  author- 
ities to  receive  their  interpretation  from  that  one  word.  We  have  no 
disposition  to  deny  that  the  communion  table  may  in  some  sense  be 
rightly  called  an  altar.  When  Romish  writers,  in  controversy  with 
our  Reformers,  adduced  the  use  of  the  term  among  the  fathers,  they 
were  answered  by  Dean  Nowell  as  follows :  •'  If  St.  Basil  and  some 
other  old  writers,  call  it  an  altar,  that  is  no  proper  but  a  figurative 
name,  for  that,  as  in  the  old  law,  their  burnt-offerings  and  sacrifices 
were  offered  upon  the  altar,  so  are  our  sacrifices  of  prayer  and 
thanksgiving  &c.,  offered  up  to  God  at  the  Lord's  table,  as  if  it  were 
an  altar.  But  such  kind  of  figurative  speech  can  be  no  just  cause 
to  set  up  altars,  rather  than  tables;  unless  they  think  that  their  cros- 
ses also  should  be  turned  into  altars,  for  that  like  phrase  is  used  of 


[20] 

them,  where  it  is  said  Christ  offered  up  himself  upon  the  altar  of  the 

cross."  II 

2d.  My  second  reason  is  that  the  form  of  a  table  is  according  to 
the  institution  of  Christ,  the  practice  of  the  primitive  Church,  the 
practice  of  the  Church  of  England,  and,  until  recently,  the,  almost 
unvaried  practice  of  the  Prot.  Ep.  Churches  in  these  t'nitcd  States; 
while  on  the  other  hand  the  form  of  an  altar  is  no  older  in  the  chris- 
lian  church  than  those  grievous  corruptions  of  Christianity  which 
became  prevalent  in  the  4th  and  5th  centuries,  but  is  identified  with 
the  whole  history  of  the  Romish  apostacy. 

3d.  My  third  reason  is,  that  the  form  of  a  table  is  according  to 
the  nature  of  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper;  while  that  of 
an  altar  is  not.  This  was  one  of  the  reasons  given  by  Bp.  Ridley, 
when  he  issued  his  injunction  for  the  placing  of  tables  in  the  church- 
es of  his  Diocese,  and  I  am  content  to  use  his  words  :  "  The  use  of 
an  altar,  (he  says,)  is  to  make  sacrifice  upon  it ;  the  use  of  a  tablo 
is  to  serve  for  men  to  eat  upon.  Now  when  we  come  to  the  Lord's 
board  what  do  we  come  for  ?  to  sacrifice  Christ  again,  or  to  feed  up- 
on him  that  was  once  only  crucified  and  offered  up  for  us  '(  If  we 
come  to  feed  upon  him,  spiritually  to  eat  his  body,  and  spiritually  to 
drink  his  blood,  which  is  the  true  use  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  then  no 
man  can  deny  but  the  form  of  a  table  is  more  meet  for  the  Lord's 
board  than  the  form  of  an  altar." 

4th.  My  fourth  reason  is  that  the  due  guardianship  of  the  scrip- 
tural doctrine  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  against  these  errors  and  cor- 
ruptions which  the  great  adversary  of  Christ  is  ever  seeking  to  in- 
sinuate among  us,  requires  that  we  carefully  keep  up  the  form  of  a 
table,  and  reject  that  of  an  altar. 

And  here  I  am  content  to  take  the  language  of  the  leading  Divines 
of  the  Reformation,  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  as  found  in  a  list  of 
reasons  for  the  removal  of  altars,  supposed  to  have  been  written  by 
Archbishop  Parker  :  •'  An  altar  (they  say,)  hath  relation  to  a  sacri- 
fice; for  they  be  correlative,  so  that  of  necessity,  if  we  allow  an 
altar,  we  must  grant  a  sacrifice;  like  as  if  there  be  a  father,  thero 
is  also  a  son  ;  and  if  there  is  a  master,  there  is  also  a  servant. 
Whereupon  divers  of  the  learned  adversaries  themselves  have  spo- 
ken of  late,  that  there  is  no  reason  to  take  away  the  sacrifice  of  the 
mass,  and  to  leave  the  altar  standing,  SEEING  THE  OXE  WAS  ORDAIN- 
ED FOR  THE  oTiirr.."^: 

I  will  now  conclude  what  I  have  to  say  on  this  subject  by  remind- 
ing you  of  the  earnestness  with  which  that  late  venerable  Father  of 
our  American  Ep.  Church,  Bp.  White,  contended  against  whatever 
had  a  tendency  to  introduce  among  us  that  doctrine  of  a  real  sacri- 
fice and  priesthood,  in  the  Eucharist,  with  which  the  altar  is  so  es- 
sentially connected. 

One  of  the  legacies  left  us  by  that  far-seeing  Divine  is  a  Disser- 
tation on  the  Eucharist,  written  throughout,  for  the  purpose  of  show- 
ing that  in  the  Christian  Church  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  material 

||  Novell's  Reproof  of  Dorman's  Proof. 
iStrypes1  AnnaU,  vol.  1,  Part  1,  pp.  ICO,  &c. 


[21] 

sacrifice  since  that  of  Clirist  on  the  cross:  no  Priest,  in  the  sense  of 
an  offerer  of  sacrifice,  but  Christ  himself,  and  therefore  no  altar  but 
that  of  his  cross.  Allow  me  to  quote  from  that  and  from  another  of 
his  works  a  few  passages  :  "  I  conceive  (he  says)  so  unfavourably  of 
whatever  may  lead,  by  remote  consequence,  to  creature  worship,  ss 
to  give  a  caution  against  a  notion  which  sometimes  appears  in  wri- 
ters, who  were  sincere,  though  inconsistent  Protestants.  The  notion 
is  that  there  is  in  the  Eucharist  a  real  sacrifice, .that  it  is  offered  upon 
an  altar  ;  and  that  the  officiating  minister  is  a  priest,  in  the  sense  of 
an  offerer  of  sacrifice.  Under  the  economy  of  the  gospel,  there  is 
nothing  under  the  names  referred  to,  except  the  fulfilment  of  them  in 
the  person  of  the  high-priest  of  our  profession.  As  to  our  Church, 
although  she  commemorates  a  great  sacrifice  in  the  Eucharist,  yet  she 
knows  of  no  offering  of  anything  of  this  description,  except  in  the 
figurative  sense  in  which  prayers  and  alms  are  sacrifices. — She  calls 
the  place  on  which  her  oblation  is  made,  not '  an  altar,'  but  'a  table  ;' 
although  there  is  no  impropriety  in  calling  it  an  altar  also,  the  word 
being  understood  figuratively.  And  as  to  the  minister  in  the  ordi- 
nance, although  she  retains  the  word  Priest,  yet  she  considers  it  sy- 
nonomous  with  Presbyter."§  Bp.  White  said  that  the  Romish  er- 
ror on  these  heads,  "  makes  an  irreconcilable  division  between  us  and 
the  Church  of  Rome  ;"  that  the  intercommunity  of  the  names  altar 
and  table,  is  only  justifiable  in  an  accommodated  or  figurative  sense  ; 
"  for  although  an  altar  may  be  called  a  table  because  of  some  com  in  on 
properties  which  they  serve,  it  does  not  follow  that  any  table  not  pos- 
sessed of  the  discriminating  property  of  the  altar,  may  be  so  called. 
It  is  like  occasional  calling  of  ;i  Church,  a  house.  Such  it  is,  with- 
out its  being  right  to  call  every  house  a  church.  In  short,  an  altar  is 
a  place  of  sacrifice;  and  the  taking  of  its  name  carries  by  implication 
its  distinguishing  property,' 'II  He  said  that  the  errors  concerning 
Priest,  sacrifice  and  altar,  against  which  he  was  contending,  and  which 
were  precisely  those  which  are  now  striving  so  powerfully  to  gain 
prevalence  in  our  Church,  and  have  already  gained  such  alarming  ac- 
cessions, "  appeared  at  first  in  the  closet  lucubrations  of  the  few  wri- 
ters (of  antiquity)  whose  works  have  been  handed  down ;  crept  in 
gradually  ;  and  began  in  the  literal  application  of  language  which 
had  been  all  along,  and  may  be  now,  figuratively  used  on  the  respec- 
tive points.  In  England  (he  continues)  the  doctrine  was  completely 
put  down  at  the  Reformation.  If,  in  later  times,  the  notion  has  been 
entertained  by  some  of  the  clergy  of  the  Ch.  of.  England,  it  has  not 
crept  into  ln-r  public  institutions."  The  venerable  author  closed  his 
Dissertation  on  the  Eucharist,  from  which  I  have  just  quoted,  with 
these  almost  prophetic  words  :  u  The.  author  would  lament  an  ap- 
proach to  the  opposite  theory,  (opposite  to  that  which  he  was  advoca- 
ting,) among  the  clergy  and  other  members  of  the  Church  as  having 
a  threatening  aspect  on  her  peace."  An  approach  even  to  the  doctrine 
of  a  real  sacrifice  and  priest  and  altar  in  the  Eucharist,  Bp.  White 
thus  deprecated  as  dangerous  to  the  peace  of  the  Church.  How  like 

§  Bp.  White's  I.ccturrs  on  tlio  Catechism,  Lcct.  V. 
T  Diss.  on  the  Eucharist. 


